elderberries.com

"Pioneering a journey towards self-suffiency... one step at a time." The Path to Freedom blog is amazing, both in the writing and the things they produce and grow. If nothing else, visit it for its gorgeous photography of food, flowers and animals. And they produce their own elderberry wine, so I can make a case for including their blog here. :)

Well, I fought with Joomla for a couple of weeks, and finally gave up. I love learning new technologies, but Joomla just was too much for what I wanted to do. So, with more than a little bit of sadness, I deleted the last several weeks’ worth of work and installed Wordpress. I’ve never used Wordpress before, but I have no doubt it will be easier to manage than Joomla was. I’m just not technical enough to troubleshoot as much as I found myself needing to do.

So… more info, and plenty of elderberry content, coming soon.

• bookmark or share this post
  
  • Bloglines
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Furl
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

This blog features a review of the sparkling beverage "Elderflower Presse." It sounds great, but I can't see paying over $3 a bottle plus shipping from Europe to try it. Luckily my boyfriend managed to find some in Canada, and has a few bottles waiting for my next visit in a couple weeks. He says it's quite good; his exact words were "refreshing, but without a sugary aftertaste."

On this page by Andy Hamilton I found recipes for elderflower cordial, wine and champagne. These seem to require several days' time to prepare, so best to plan ahead! He also has a page here with tons of good info on the elderberry plant, including a brief history of its meanings in folklore and some tips on growing and planting.

This article from Medline Plus features a good summary of the various types of elderberry and all its scientific names. Also includes a list of other names it goes by, and a chart showing what ailments it's been scientifically proven to treat. (Although I'll save you some time; according to this chart, it hasn't been scientifically proven to treat anything, although it's been traditionally used for many things.)

PaleoPlanet has an interesting discussion board thread with good thoughts on eating ripe/unripe elderberry flowers and berries. Particularly of interest is the method of floating berries in water to distinguish which are ripe and which are not.

Healing_Friends has reposted an excellent but long write-up of natural methods for relief from cold and flu symptoms. Do a search for "elderberry" to skip to the elderberry-specific section if you wish, but the whole thing's worth a read. I'd have linked to the original posting, but I couldn't find it. :/ Original author credit: Linda B. White, M.D.

Autumn Fruits from the UK has put together a small chart of nutritional info of the elderberry as compared to the grape, as well as a collection of elderberry and elderflower drink recipes, including wine, mead port, champagne, cordial and even elderberry ice cream!

A short and simple recipe for elderberry syrup for use as a ward against colds, or added to wine for flavor. I've seen several variations very similar, but haven't yet compared them to see where they differ. Uses only elderberries and sugar.

This recipe from Recipezaar for lightly battered elderflowers sounds awesome - I hadn't really thought too much about cooking the flowers as opposed to the berries, but once I finally manage to get an elderberry bush growing, this is something I will definitely try!